Conflict of Interest
by starry34
Summary: Ariana wonders why she keeps her job, and Giovanni wonders why he lets her. AU, non-canon.


A/N: This fic is useless. I don't own Pokemon.

Also, it's not canon.

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><p>Giovanni was not really a good guy. He didn't even pretend to be.<p>

If truth be told, he never had much of a chance, right from the start. His mother had singlehandedly founded one of the most evil organisations the world had ever seen; mostly, everybody presumed, by sleeping with anybody with a title.

This was not at all unusual, and dumped an enormous inheritance in Giovanni's lap long before his mother kicked the bucket. It was profoundly dirty money, almost all stolen but some coerced (the difference being, primarily, sex), but he couldn't have given a monkey's left buttcheek. Point being: he was rich, and nobody on earth dared to question it.

Giovanni was skilled at some things, but in business, his mother had his arse beaten several times over. He'd hired so many people – specifically, females of a certain age – to, essentially, do his job, that he rarely worried about anything except chewing out fuck-ups. It was an issue of great debate whether Giovanni did not know or simply did not care that he could have accomplished almost everything he wanted done right more efficaciously himself if he hadn't been too busy with his other favourite pastime- that was, the aforementioned females.

And really, that was where it all began.

There was not quite a noun specific enough to describe the complexities of Giovanni's business of women, but a close one was _brothel_. He saw so many of them, day-to-day, that if any of them suspected there was anything more in it for them than a paycheck and a (not too) quick lay – well, nobody did suspect that. If there was anyone who could have, however, it was Ariana.

She was one of few people that seemed to pique Giovanni's interest. She worked for him, yes, but she had a brain, and he noticed. He also noticed her chest, but that was more of a first impression. In the time since she'd begun to work for him, she'd occupied his thoughts a lot more than he felt comfortable with.

"Giovanni."

"Did you reassign Jessie and James yet?" He was sitting at his desk, more for show than productivity, and, in keeping with this, pretending to be occupied with paperwork that looked more like a Sudoku puzzle.

Ariana's eyes twitched upward. "Yes, for the sake of argument."

He kept his head down, but turned his eyes to her. "What argument?"

A satirical smile upturned the corners of her mouth. "The one where I steer the conversation to what you're really working on, and you bitch at me to answer your question and get my mind on the job." She'd come closer to his desk, and was now leaning over it, in a manner that would have seemed suggestive if she hadn't had such a ridiculously mocking smirk on her face.

"Bitch?" He looked up this time, his face stern.

"You heard me. Hey, Giovanni , numbers weren't in my job description."

"Shut up," he said, and leaned over his Sudoku again.

"Sure thing, Boss."

_Boss?_ His eyes snapped up before he realised her game. She was grinning, standing up now, her arms crossed over her chest.

"Ah, Giovanni, you do pay attention to me."

His jaw clenched. He did. More than he wanted her to know, and she didn't help things any by taunting him. "For a moment, I thought I had heard a small deviation from the endless trend of disrespect and incompetency I'm usually faced with, Ariana." This wasn't entirely fair; she was truthfully one of the more competent of his employees, a fact which left a bitter taste in Giovanni's mouth.

She laughed. "You're pathetic."

He gave her a pointed look. "I was wrong."

"Oh, well, obviously. Giovanni, look down, your pants are soaked."

He choked on nothing. "Excuse me?"

"Mind out of the gutter! Shameful, Giovanni. And to think all I meant was that your insults hold about as much water as a cheerleader on laxatives."

"You're a sick woman."

"Probably, but I think they're afraid to diagnose."

"I wonder why."

"Who knows? I'm a joy to work with, aren't I, Giovanni?"

"Like a needle in my eye, Ariana."

"You get more flies with honey . . ."

He snickered. "I can get any fly I want, 'honey.'"

"Unfortunately, yes; fortunately, I don't qualify for the 'want' category."

Actually, there were times he wondered if he only wanted to fuck her because she enjoyed holding herself so sadistically out of his reach. There were also times he wondered why the fuck he'd employed her.

She spent entirely too much time teasing him, though, to possibly find him as distasteful as she assured. Either that, or she really was a sadist – but Giovanni would not entertain this notion whatsoever. Possessing "an ego more inflated than demand-side economics" was not a positive quality, as Ariana so gently put it, but it certainly bred confidence.

Essentially, as he saw it, for all intents and purposes she secretly wanted to screw him – understandably – and his goal was to make her realise it and get on with his life. Probably actually fuck her somewhere in between.

He really hadn't expected to care about her. Neither had he wanted to, but there were certain things that even Giovanni's pride wasn't immune to, regardless of whatever vaccinating properties he believed promiscuous sex possessed. Ariana was one of those things.

"I've become bored with this." It was a week later, and she was interrupting him again. She did it about twelve times a week, and it always accompanied a headache. Today she'd barged in right as he was contemplating whether he should wait until noon to ask for a bottle of liqueur, her voice singsong, almost whiny, but she was smiling, so she obviously had a more poignant reason for seeing him. He couldn't conceive what that would be, and perhaps the enigma was what it was about her that really threw him. In his experience, women were pretty easy to figure, and, for that matter, fuck.

He didn't like it.

"Specify or leave, I'm busy."

"You are not. It's mid-morning and you're probably about to call for some gin."

…Vodka. He cringed. How the fuck did she know that? "And that's your problem?"

"Only because I'd rather be drunk than try to train another fucking Psyduck."

"Why are you doing that?"

"Because you're not. And rumour has it you seem to think they have some practical purpose besides making themselves dizzy."

She was brilliant, maybe, but shortsighted. "If children can train them, it should be a cakewalk for you."

She didn't try to hide her astonishment. "Was that actually a compliment?"

Not by any standards he knew of. "It was a point, Ariana. If you're qualified to work here, you should know enough to accomplish at least as much as a ten-year-old."

"Oh, Giovanni." She looked amused. "I am most certainly not qualified to work here."

He couldn't mask the surprise on his face fast enough, raising an eyebrow at her before it hit him that she had once again struck him off-guard. Goddamn, that was a definite downside to having her around – the bitch liked to bait him. He closed his eyes in exasperation, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You're not funny," he related dryly.

"Wasn't trying to be," Ariana said, leaning back against the arm of a nearby chair. "I haven't slept with you yet, and I won't kiss your ass, either. Way underqualified."

He could play that game. "'Yet.'"

Her eyes flickered towards the ceiling almost unnoticeably. "Of course that was the only thing you'd get out of that."

"Of course."

There was a thick silence between them. After a moment, Giovanni scowled, wondering why he hadn't kicked her out yet. "Get back to work, you're paid for this."

She shrugged, unaffected. "Well , you were right."

"Surprise."

"The Psyduck's got psychic abilities. But it's annoyingly stubborn."

His expression was unreadable. "I see. Well, you're completely wrong."

It was her turn to be thrown – a look of shock and confusion flitted over her face. "Are you kidding? I've spent _hours_ working with them. Give me a little credit here."

"But I am," Giovanni smirked back, his amusement much too translucent; blatantly contradicting the coldness and annoyance he usually met her with. "When it comes to dealing with stubborn and frustratingly difficult things, you're the most qualified person I have."

"Only because you don't do anything yourself."

"Disrespectful, Ariana."

"I prefer to think of it as karmic backlash."

He glared at her. "Are you going to loiter here all day wasting my time?"

She shrugged. "I actually thought of this as more of an inconvenience, but when you put it that way, it almost starts to seem tolerable."

"…Get back to work," he reprimanded once again, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at her.

She snickered. "Pot and kettle, Giovanni. Which are you today?"

He growled in frustration. She was right, but it wasn't her place. "I should dismiss you for your attitude, Ariana."

A dark smile spread across her face. "Dare you."

To hell with her. He glared back, earning himself another laugh.

"You know you can't," she said maddeningly. "No one else can do my job."

"Archer," he said, just to contradict her.

"Oh _god_," she replied, looking horrified at the thought, and for a moment he wondered if she'd actually been humbled. Ariana made a disgusted face. "Just the thought of what he would do to you…"

Giovanni flinched. "Fuck you."

"You'd like to," she smirked, leaning over, and he realised exactly how low-cut her shirt was. He couldn't think of anything to say to that, and in the middle of trying to concoct a response, became acutely aware that he was shamelessly staring at her breasts, and that she was watching him with a calculating expression. "And that's why you can't," she said, but there was a definable trace of disappointment in her tone.

The inflated part – that was, most – of his ego triumphed at that, but Ariana had a lot of reasons to be disappointed, and whatever he pretended, Giovanni knew it. He meant to say something along the lines of, "If you're going to dress like that…" but it came out as a sort of choked sound, and the indignity of it all hit him like a ton of bricks.

"You were expecting…?" he questioned pointedly, if not tactfully, regaining his wits.

"Exactly that. You're exactly what I expect you to be, Giovanni." She still had a trace of a smile on her face, but there was a tired sound to her voice. She stood up, walking away from him, but as she reached the doorway, she looked back at him, a smile on her face again. "It's five o'clock somewhere."

Picking up his Sudoku again with a sigh, he realised he wasn't sure who she was telling.

Giovanni glanced at the clock for the sixth time in the past twenty minutes. He had been putting off calling Ariana in all day; it was now 5:34 and he could just imagine the bitching she would do if he kept her late to tell her she would be accompanying him on a business trip. Ariana hated these, namely because they always seemed to end in a room filled with scantily-clad women pretending they cared about or even comprehended anything Giovanni was telling them. It was so intellectually non-stimulating that she had fallen asleep once in a chair while he was making his rounds, only to be awakened the next morning by an annoyed cleaning lady mumbling about drunk whores. The indignity of being lumped in with "those women" had, for some reason Giovanni did not sympathise with, put Ariana off work-related travelling.

This was getting ridiculous. She worked for him, and if he wanted to put her on a jet and send her halfway across the world, that was his prerogative. Ariana was getting entirely too comfortable for his liking, so Giovanni reasoned that if his business interests were going to be a problem, she could find a job that required less commitment. Screw that he couldn't afford to lose her; she had to be costing him more time in headaches than she made up for productively.

He jammed the button on his office phone for his secretary, some brunette he'd found on spring break while vacationing in the tropics. It didn't occur to him that a woman might hesitate to leave higher education to answer his personal phone, and she did nothing to suggest the possibility, settling in easily in reception.

"How can I help you, sir?"

Now there was the respect the head of Team Rocket deserved. Why couldn't people get on board with that concept? Giovanni used the generic "people" because the more accurate sentiment sounded disgraceful from a position of higher authority.

"Send Ariana to my office," he said, hanging up before she could respond.

He glanced through some files as he waited, not paying attention to any of them. He didn't have long to idle, however. While Ariana was inarguably disrespectful, she didn't make a habit of incompliance. Giovanni wasn't stupid enough to be under the impression that she didn't consciously decide whether or not to follow her orders, but it happened that Ariana was clever enough to discriminate effectively enough to maintain her value in her job.

"So, what trifles have you decided to irritate me with today, Giovanni?"

He looked up. Her countenance contradicted her words; she didn't look annoyed. He decided to cut to the chase. "A business trip."

All traces of amiability left Ariana's face. "Fuck you. You can get one of these idiot college break girls to credentialise you among the other aspiring whores. I'm not going to be degraded by hotel maintenance again just so you can get laid." The issue that there was already an obnoxious menagerie of women already in his employment was a moot point; Ariana knew Giovanni well enough to know that none of them really interested him. He was always after something else.

"May I suggest laying off the vodka, then?" A half smirk played across Giovanni's face as Ariana glared, slamming her hands down on his desk.

"You're really pushing it," she said. "I'm not going with you. You don't own me."

"No, but you will go," Giovanni replied calmly. "If for no other reason than you think I'll do something beneath my intelligence and require your presence. A highly unnecessary worry, but it seems to convince you."

"I wonder why," Ariana retorted, rolling her eyes. "The thought of you doing something stupid is absurd." She fixed her gaze on him. "I shouldn't care if you need me. You can take some responsibility."

Giovanni remained placid, half-smirking at her. "I can, and you probably shouldn't, considering that you actually _want_ your job security to be directly correlated with your aptitude in the position. Caring takes you down a dangerous road, Ariana," he satirised. "But you do, so you'll have to contend with that while you're packing your bags."

Her face was a mix of anger and surprise. She didn't say anything, glaring at him in thick, tense silence. "I'm going shopping," Ariana said finally, without softening any. "And I'm considering it a work expense."

This woman, forever toeing the line, thought Giovanni. That was a generous overstatement; she was far over it in just the fact that she had no concern for his authority, or temper for that matter. She was the only one that got away with speaking to him that way. She was also the only one guilty of daring to. He tried not to reflect on that, but sometimes the bitch really made it impossible. The truth of the matter was that he needed her, and Ariana had the annoying trait of knowing how to make her mind up. He lost authority when it came to her, but justified it because he knew that she was more trustworthy and reliable when it mattered than anyone else he knew. But still…

"Only if you buy a slutty dress," he smirked.

"…That's it. I'm not going."

Giovanni pushed a stack of bills towards her. "Take it. Buy yourself a new personality. Preferably one that respects me. Then take the hint on the dress."

She snatched it up off the desk with a sarcastic sneer. "Oh, but Giovanni, how would you find me among your harem if I adopted their streetwalker couture?"

"I'd follow the trail of blood," he said. "Don't hang yourself up on _that_…"

Ariana stalked out, muttering something that sounded like, "Hang myself, that's a good idea."

First class, private jet. There was the (only) silver lining in this trip, Ariana thought. At the very least, there wouldn't be any kids to kick the back of her seat or some obnoxious snorer using her shoulder as a pillow. Those were the days before Team Rocket, but she'd never acknowledge to Giovanni how much better this was. He definitely didn't deserve to hear it. His ego needed it even less.

She crossed her arms, glancing over at him. Entitled bastard had already managed a martini and they'd barely sat down.

"Giovanni," she said, giving him a disdainful look. "Don't you think that's a little overeager?" She didn't mean it; more so she was annoyed that she hadn't gotten one.

He raised an eyebrow. "What's that you say about the pot and the kettle?"

Ariana glared back. "Do you see a martini in my hand?"

"I wish I did," was the simple reply, leaving the numerous implications to her imagination. For all Ariana unnerved Giovanni, he knew her well; it was what wasn't said that drove her crazier than anything he could have concocted. And she had a very hard time biting her tongue, even when she knew what he was after.

Ariana's stone cold look told him he had hit the mark. She was fighting with herself not to take the bait, but she was already in a bad mood; his arrogance was only serving to make her feel positively violent toward him. She stood up, crossing the aisle to where he sat. "Asking you to get the fuck over yourself is a pointless request, I acknowledge that. But while I'm sitting three feet away from you contemplating what questionable pharmacopeia I can drop in your cocktail, it would be in your best interest."

Giovanni was still sitting, looking up at her with an expression of amusement. He was bad at concealing his emotions around her; he should have been angry. After all, he was her boss and on a less official note, she was as much of a snob as he was. But he couldn't take her words seriously. He knew her too well to even comment on the inappropriateness of such a threat. It was amusing, nothing more. She was annoyed, he was the cause, and she couldn't do anything about it. That was what was really eating her; Ariana couldn't stand not to have the last word.

"I can recommend a few," he replied smoothly, smirking up at her. "But maybe you should just ask for your own drink if you want one so badly. Do the world a favor…"

Ariana's eyes narrowed. "Well, Giovanni, I just don't have a lot of patience today." She took the martini from his fingers, holding it out of his reach. "This is how I get you to think about something other than yourself." He stared. She grinned, sitting down with the drink.

"I thought you hated gin."

"I do."

"You know that's a-"

"Martini, yes, and you always go for vodka."

Giovanni's eyebrows rose. "Suit yourself." He snapped his fingers and a blonde attendant who barely looked old enough to be legal scurried over. "Dry martini, with vodka, no olives."

Ariana rolled her eyes, taking a sip from what was now apparently her glass. Giovanni watched, smirking, as she swallowed, then gagged, contorting her face into a variety of unpleasant expressions as she tried to get the taste out of her mouth. She held the glass out to him without looking. "That _is_ gin, you could have warned me."

"I tried, but you seemed so certain," he said easily, once again possessing his drink.

She glowered. "Fucking bastard."

He was going to ignore that. "Ariana."

Her head turned, expression dark. "What?" she snapped.

"I'm very sorry."

"Yes, probably that you hadn't taken my suggestion on spiking that."

The corners of his mouth twitched upward; that was true, but it wasn't the point. "Granted, but more so that my deviation from my normal drinking standards has left me having to deal with you in possibly the most unpleasant mood I've ever seen you."

Ariana didn't say anything, laying her head back on the seat with her eyes closed. "Shut up. Twenty minutes into the trip and I've run out of tolerance for you."

The blonde girl returned. "Your martini, Boss," she said, smiling brightly. "If there's anything else I can do for you…"

Ariana didn't have to open her eyes to know what was really being asked. She contented herself with mentally chastising the mental deficiencies of whores and the complete lack of self-respect it had to take to proposition your boss, even if it was Giovanni.

Giovanni, in turn, gestured at Ariana. "For her," he said boredly, making the blonde's expression sour resentfully. Ariana could have predicted that sequence of events, sans the unexpected appearance of a vodka martini in front of her. It was like these brainless girls expected to shatter Giovanni's reputation by- being pretty enough? She had no idea. He was so easily bored she hadn't ever seen him with one woman for longer than a week. Sometimes it was two women. But regardless, they all seemed so disappointed when he brushed them off.

She opened her eyes, giving Giovanni a quizzical look and ignoring the distasteful look on the blonde's face. "…You're a pain in the ass, you know that?" she said, swirling the vodka around in the glass.

"You _said_ you wanted me to think about someone other than myself. I wouldn't have picked you, but unfortunately there wasn't anybody else around." To the presence of the blonde girl, who was now gaping indignantly, he appeared completely oblivious.

Ariana half-emptied her glass. "Just keep these coming and I'll be well on my way to becoming a mindless tramp like you're looking for on 'business.'"

"Mindless, yes, with the vodka, but I've yet to see tramp. And this _is_ about business. I've arranged for a few agents to meet there, and you can brief them on their assignments and establish a plan so they get it done. They're for the most part almost completely incapable, so make sure it's idiot-proof."

"Kind of you to finally enlighten me. That'll take what, ten minutes? I'm going to take up permanent residence on a bar stool."

"Longer than that, I imagine, but I don't know or care. Just get it done."

Ariana rolled her eyes. It was pathetic. That was Giovanni in a nutshell. No regard for efficiency or even logic – if he decided he wanted something a certain way, that was the final word on the subject. There was absolutely no need for her to come on this trip, she could almost guarantee that. Giovanni had a point about the intelligence of many of his field agents, but a meeting wasn't going to make up for mistakes in the field. If they really couldn't follow a plan (and she knew they couldn't), he was better off finding somebody else to do the job. The underlings of Team Rocket made the whole establishment look bad.

Her job was different, at least, or maybe it only seemed that way because she did it and she knew her work was credible. There would have been far less of it, though, did intellect take precedence over beauty in the hiring process. So Ariana was annoyed. It didn't matter if she found her work interesting, it still wouldn't get done without her, and Giovanni was wasting her time. She contented herself with finishing off the martini, and decided to begin a mental tally of how many drinks she had on the trip.

"And for the last time, Jessie and James, don't fuck up."

It was really not worth giving more instruction than that. It wouldn't be adhered to and they undoubtedly would fuck up.

"It's not like we're trying to," Jessie replied angrily. "Between that kid and his annoying friends, something weird is always happening. Maybe the boss should assign more suitable team members to the job if it's so much of a problem. Or at least more."

"Don't blame me," James projected. "I do everything you say, even the stupid stuff. You made me dress like a woman."

"I didn't hear you complaining," was Jessie's response, to which there was no refutation.

Ariana was up to six drinks so far.

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><p>So I might update this someday, but I'm pretty lazy. Peace out for now.<p> 


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